Fabricating Z-scheme C-doped TiO2/rGO nanocomposites for enhanced photocatalytic NO removal

Meijuan Chen; Wei Wang; Yu Huang; Jichang Han; Yang Zhang; Tongxi Yang; Jinghan Zhao; Liyun Zhao; Wingkei Ho

doi:10.1088/1361-6528/ac7daf

Fabricating Z-scheme C-doped TiO₂/rGO nanocomposites for enhanced photocatalytic NO removal

Nanotechnology. 2022 Jul 25;33(41). doi: 10.1088/1361-6528/ac7daf.

Authors

Meijuan Chen^{1

2}, Wei Wang^{3

4}, Yu Huang³, Jichang Han², Yang Zhang², Tongxi Yang¹, Jinghan Zhao¹, Liyun Zhao¹, Wingkei Ho⁵

Affiliations

¹ School of Human Settlements and Civil Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049, People's Republic of China.
² Key Laboratory of Degraded and Unused Land Consolidation Engineering, The Ministry of Natural Resources of China, Xi'an 710075, People's Republic of China.
³ Key Lab of Aerosol Chemistry and Physics, State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology (SKLLQG), Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710061, People's Republic of China.
⁴ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, People's Republic of China.
⁵ Department of Science and Environmental Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, N.T., Hong Kong, People's Republic of China.

PMID: 35777312
DOI: 10.1088/1361-6528/ac7daf

Abstract

It is attractive to explore practical approaches to optimize the photodegraded NO property of TiO₂. Herein, a typicalZ-shaped heterojunction C-TiO₂/rGO composed of carbon-doped TiO₂and reductive graphene oxide (rGO) was constructed to optimize the NO removal efficiency through anin situone-pot hydrothermal process with glucose as reductant and dopant. The C-TiO₂/rGO (0.11%) composite displays a remarkable NO removal performance of 40.6% under visible light illumination. It was found that the C-TiO₂nanoparticles were tightly attached to the rGO sheets and had strong interactions with rGO, which induced a positive impact on not only the light absorption and photo-generated charge separation but also the NO adsorption and reactive oxygen species formation, resulting in boosted photodegrade NO activity. As to the photodegrade NO process over the C-TiO₂/rGO, the HO^•and O₂^•-were the dominant radicals, of which the O₂^•-radical originated from the interactions between C-TiO₂and rGO. We proposed aZ-scheme mechanism to illuminate the advanced photocatalytic activity of C-TiO₂/rGO. This work affords an approach to developing effective photocatalysts in the NO purification field.

Keywords: C-TiO2; NO; Z-scheme; photocatalysis; reductive graphene oxide.